Tax tip: National Insurance contributions

Some clients have an ‘incomplete’ National Insurance contributions (NIC) history. That is they don’t have 35 years of NIC contributions entitling them to a full UK state pension (and they won’t reach this 35-year threshold simply by continuing to work for ‘X number’ of additional years in the UK). This is the case for example with many clients who have been based overseas and weren’t liable to NICs while abroad.

So what can such clients do to acquire a full UK state pension? In practice some individuals may not want to ‘do anything’. That is because they have a high level of private pension provision or know that they will also be benefiting from foreign state pension payments for the years which are ‘missing’ from a UK state pension angle or simply don’t have the spare cash to consider their options at the present time....